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USS ''Enterprise'' (NCC-1701-D), or ''Enterprise''-D, is a starship in the ''
Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...
'' media franchise. Under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, it is the main setting of '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (1987–1994) and the film '' Star Trek Generations'' (1994). It has also been depicted in various spinoffs, films, books, and licensed products. ''The Next Generation'' occurs in the 24th century, 78 years after the adventures of Captain
James T. Kirk James Tiberius Kirk is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. Originally played by Canadian actor William Shatner, Kirk first appeared in ''Star Trek'' serving aboard the starship USS ''Enterprise'' as captain. Kirk leads ...
and the starship ''Enterprise''. Andrew Probert's ''Enterprise''-D updates Matt Jefferies' iconic 1960s ''Enterprise'' design, depicting a ship supporting a larger crew on a longer mission "to boldly go where no one has gone before."


Development and production


Concept

Paramount Television Group and ''Star Trek'' creator
Gene Roddenberry Eugene Wesley Roddenberry Sr. (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American television screenwriter, producer, and creator of '' Star Trek: The Original Series'', its sequel spin-off series '' Star Trek: The Animated Series,'' and '' ...
announced the development of a new ''Star Trek'' series in October 1986. Because the ''Enterprise'' had been "just as important to he original ''Star Trek''as Kirk,
Spock Spock is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. He first appeared in the original ''Star Trek'' series serving aboard the starship USS ''Enterprise'' as science officer and first officer (and Kirk's Second-in-command) and ...
, and McCoy," the new ship was critical. Whereas Captain Kirk led a five-year mission, the new crew would be outfitted for a mission of at least 10 years. To sustain such a journey, the new vessel would be twice as long, eight times the volume, and include the crew's families. Roddenberry also wanted the ship to depict an improved quality of life for its crew: it would be brighter, less militaristic, and have sleeker and more refined interfaces than the original ''Enterprise''. He wanted the ''Enterprise'' to convey a harmony between science and quality of life. The ''Enterprise''s registry was originally ''NCC-1701-7''. The ''7'' became a ''G'' to be consistent with the new USS ''Enterprise'', with registry NCC-1701-''A'', at the conclusion of '' Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home'' (1986). A February 1987 revision to the ''Next Generation'' writers' manual specified the show's ''Enterprise'' as the ''NCC-1701-D'', carrying a crew of 907 and their families; by March, the crew complement was 1,012 and specified the show occurring 78 years after the original ''Star Trek''.


Design

Artists Andrew Probert, Rick Sternbach, and Michael Okuda were among the earliest ''Next Generation'' hires, and they had worked on ''Star Trek'' films. Probert, a concept artist, focused first on the bridge because that would be a frequent filming location. Roddenberry envisioned the bridge as having a forward viewscreen four times larger than in ''Star Trek'', and for there to be a conference table on the bridge itself. As production design continued, the table was shifted to a conference room adjacent to the bridge, and an open bridge design formed. Probert designed a transporter to be near the bridge, but Roddenberry preferred that it be further away so characters could have conversations on their way to the transporter room. Knowing the bridge would need to match up with the exterior design, Probert pinned up a "what if?" painting he'd made shortly after finalizing the ''Enterprise'' redesign for 1979's '' Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' as a referent. Unbeknownst to Probert, story editor David Gerrold took the image to a producers meeting. The producers liked the design and directed Probert to make it the basis for the new vessel. The sleeker lines and rounded contours that informed the interior design also influenced the exterior. The ship's many windows are meant to allow the crew to be in touch with their environment. The new ''Enterprise'' retains the hallmarks of Matt Jefferies' design for the original ''Enterprise'': a saucer section, engineering section, and a pair of engine nacelles. Probert did this in part to assuage skeptical fans who were concerned about the original ''Enterprise'' being "replaced". The design instead shifted placement and proportion: for example, the saucer section was enlarged and the warp nacelles shifted lower. Slanting the nacelle support pylons forward conveyed a sense of intense forward movement. Fans got their first look at the ''Enterprise'' in the July 1987 issue of ''
Starlog ''Starlog'' was a monthly science fiction magazine that was created in 1976 and focused primarily on ''Star Trek'' at its inception. Kerry O'Quinn and Norman Jacobs were its creators and it was published by Starlog Group, Inc. in August 1976. ' ...
''. Probert's design did not originally include the ability for the saucer and engineering sections to separate, and producers rejected his initial concepts for incorporating it. Probert said his biggest design challenge was creating a ship that looked as good in two pieces as it did in one piece. He had meant to add landing gear to the saucer's underside as he had with the film franchise ''Enterprise'', but he got "distracted" and never added them.


Sets

In October 1986, producers began planning the show's sets, including efforts to reuse props and materials from the film franchise. The films' engineering,
sickbay A sick bay is a compartment in a ship, or a section of another organisation, such as a school or college, used for medical purposes. The sick bay contains the ship's medicine chest, which may be divided into separate cabinets, such as a refrigera ...
, corridor, crew quarters, and bridge were redressed for ''The Next Generation''. To save money in the first season, the observation lounge's windows were covered with carpet to become sickbay; a new lounge set was created for the second season. A multipurpose set that served as the cargo bay, shuttlecraft bay, holodeck, and gymnasium was built from scratch. While the bridge "seems immense," the set had the same width as the original series bridge and was longer. A lounge set was created in unused
soundstage A sound stage (also written soundstage) is a soundproof, large structure, building, or room with large doors and high ceilings, used for the production of theatrical film-making and television productions, usually located on a secured movie or ...
space after the first season: producers realized their existing sets were workspaces, and they wanted an area to depict the crew at rest. The production crew did everything possible "within reason" both to recreate first-season sets and to imagine futuristic upgrades for the series finale, " All Good Things..." (1994), which presents the ship in three different time periods. Some props and details, such as the first-season conference room starship models, had been saved and were reused for the flashback scenes. Sets for the future scenes reused props from other episodes that posit the ''Enterprise''s appearance further in the future.


Filming models and visual effects

Producers were aware that audiences had grown accustomed to the cinematic quality of models and effects in the franchise's films. They considered using only CGI models and effects, but anxiety about whether the vendor could consistently deliver high-quality work led to that idea's rejection. The producers turned to
Industrial Light & Magic Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began pr ...
(ILM), who had worked on the ''Star Trek'' films, for the "
Encounter at Farpoint "Encounter at Farpoint" is the pilot episode and series premiere of the American science fiction television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', which premiered in syndication on September 28, 1987. It was written by D. C. Fontana a ...
" pilot. In March 1987, an ILM team led by
Greg Jein Greg Jein (born October 31, 1945 in Los Angeles, USA; died May 22, 2022) was a Chinese American model designer who created miniatures for use in the special effects portions of many films and television series, beginning in the 1970s. Jein was ...
and Ease Owyeung began building filming miniatures based on Probert's designs. They created two models for $75,000: a model and a model that separated into the saucer and engineering sections. The models were made of
fiberglass Fiberglass ( American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cl ...
and cast resin over aluminum frames, and neon lights and incandescents provided the models' interior lighting. ILM created several
stock footage Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stoc ...
shots and effects, including the ''Enterprise''s jump to warp. The warp jump was featured in the show's opening sequence, but most of the other shots were too static and "didn't pan out." New ''Enterprise'' shots were created as necessary for each episode, and effects supervisor Robert Legato had over 350 such shots in his library by the seventh season. Legato disliked filming the six-foot model: its size made it hard to shoot for long shots, and its lack of surface details—some of which were drawn with pencil—made it difficult to use in close-ups. Jein supervised construction of a miniature for the third season that was more detailed than the first two.


Transition to film

Production designer Herman Zimmerman had more freedom for ''Star Trek Generations'' than he had on previous ''Star Trek'' films. Producers wanted to ensure ''Generations'' stayed true to the television series while also taking advantage of the film production's scope and budget. Interiors were relit and received several cosmetic changes, such as redesigned consoles, metallic accents, and replacing backlit displays with monitors. Some changes, like enhanced detailing and a redesigned bridge ceiling, were necessitated by the film cameras' higher resolution. The increased budget allowed for the creation of sophisticated new sets, such as the stellar cartography lab.
John Knoll John Knoll (born October 6, 1962) is an American visual effects supervisor and chief creative officer (CCO) at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). One of the original creators of Adobe Photoshop (along with his brother, Thomas Knoll), he has also ...
led ILM's visual effects for the film, including an all-CGI warp jump effect for the ''Enterprise''. ILM rewired and updated its six-foot ''Enterprise'' model for the saucer separation sequence. ILM made a saucer section model to "crash" into an planet surface model. An model of the saucer's forward edge was used for close-ups of the crashed ship.


Depiction

Starfleet commissions the ''Galaxy''-class USS ''Enterprise'' in 2363 under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. The flagship of the United Federation of Planets, it is on a mission "to boldly go where no one has gone before." The crew explores the galaxy and makes first contact with several new species, including the
Q Continuum Q is a fictional character, as well as the name of a race, in '' Star Trek'' appearing in the '' Next Generation'', '' Deep Space Nine'', '' Voyager'', '' Lower Decks'', and '' Picard'' series and in related media. The most familiar Q is portray ...
and the Borg. A pair of two-part episodes depict a shift in command—to
William Riker William Thomas "Will" Riker is a fictional character in the '' Star Trek'' universe appearing primarily as a main character in '' Star Trek: The Next Generation''. Throughout the series and its accompanying films, he is the '' Enterprise''s f ...
in " The Best of Both Worlds" and Edward Jellico in " Chain of Command"—but leadership reverts to Picard at the end of both arcs. The ''Enterprise'' also briefly appears in other franchise spinoffs: the pilots of ''
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' (abbreviated as ''DS9'') is an American science fiction television series created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller. The fourth series in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise, it originally aired in syndication from ...
'' (1993) and '' Star Trek: Picard'' (2020) and the finale of '' Star Trek: Enterprise'' (2005). In 2371, as depicted in ''Star Trek Generations'', the Duras sisters attack and heavily damage the ''Enterprise''. A
warp drive A warp drive or a drive enabling space warp is a fictional superluminal spacecraft propulsion system in many science fiction works, most notably ''Star Trek'', and a subject of ongoing physics research. The general concept of "warp drive" was ...
coolant leak causes an explosion that destroys the stardrive section. The saucer section crash lands on the surface of Veridian III and is damaged beyond repair. The ''Enterprise'' is itself a protagonist in ''The Next Generation''. Each episode's opening voiceover, which states that "these are the voyages of the starship ''Enterprise''," frames the narrative as belonging to the ship rather than the crew. Jonathan Frakes, who played first officer William Riker, said, "When we negotiate our contracts, Paramount's company line is that the ship is in fact the star of the show!"


Critical reaction

'' io9'' ranked the ''Enterprise''-D as the fifth best version of the franchise's ''Enterprise''s, with ''
Popular Mechanics ''Popular Mechanics'' (sometimes PM or PopMech) is a magazine of popular science and technology, featuring automotive, home, outdoor, electronics, science, do-it-yourself, and technology topics. Military topics, aviation and transportation o ...
'' calling it the third best and SyFy ranking it the second best. Space.com said the ''Enterprise'' brief appearance is the highlight of the opening scene of '' Star Trek: Picard'' first episode (2020).


Cultural impact

In October 2006, the six-foot ''Enterprise'' miniature was auctioned at
Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémi ...
, along with other models, props, costumes, and set pieces from the ''Star Trek'' franchise. Its projected value was $25,000 to $35,000, but the final sale price was $576,000—the most expensive item in the auction.


References


Citations


Sources

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External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Uss Enterprise (Ncc-1701-D) Enterprise-D Star Trek: The Next Generation Fictional elements introduced in 1987